China is no stranger to blocking websites. Therefore, it is no surprise that the Chinese government has recently blocked access to the online publication site Medium in mainland China.
The news first broke when a user called “vfulco” reported on Hacker News that Medium is no longer accessible in mainland China. A quick test on Greafire.org, a site that documents and reports on web censorship in China, shows that the website was first blocked on the 10th of April.
Medium isn’t the only website that has felt the wrath of the Great Firewall of China as The Economist and Time websites were also blocked days before the Medium was blocked. While there is no official statement as to why either websites were made inaccessible in China, many speculate that the blocks were attributed to the recent Panama Papers scandal. In the case of The Economist and Time, both websites has run stories surrounding Chinese President Xi Jinping and his alleged involvement in the Panama Papers scandal, so it is not surprising that both websites were blocked by the Chinese government. Medium doesn’t seem to host any articles that implicate any high-ranking Chinese officials in the Panama Papers scandal, so we assume that the website was blocked as a precautionary measure.
Source: Mashable, The New York Times